Ziggy

Or Ziggers as we call him.  The "miracle cat".

 In July of 2009, Madison had a friend from another town sleep over as a belated birthday thing.  This friend happened to have kittens in their barn.  I said we could go and look as we would pick up the friend anyway.   The friend had an 11 week old black and white female that she had kind of picked out for Madison.  But when we walked into the barn my gaze was immediately fixed upon a much smaller about 6 week old black and white kitten sleeping in a wagon.  Madison and I discussed it, and after finding out that he was a boy, decided to get a younger kitten for her to bond with.

 I had Ziggy in my bedroom for the first few days.  He didn't particularly like our dog Dakota.  A dog from his previous home killed his brother, so I don't blame him.   Ziggy was extremely affectionate, going from my husband to me, back and forth and would nudge our faces with his nose.  We would tell him....yes Ziggy I love you too. 

A few weeks after we got Ziggy he started to walk funny.  He wasn't using one of his back legs.  It was obviously painful for him as he cried when touched the wrong way.  We decided just to watch it and see if it didn't just get better on it's own.   The next morning before leaving for work, I checked on him in Maddie's room.  He was hot with a fever, I took his temperature and his temp was 105 (usual 101 or 102).   I had my husband drop him off at the vet with instructions to call me at work when the vet had looked at him. 

I received a call from the vet in the late morning.  He said that the x-ray showed that the hip was dislocated from the joint.   We could watch it for 2 weeks and see if it improved, but his experience with these things said that this possibility was very slim.  He may need surgery to fix the joint.  The vet had not been told about the fever, but said he would check it out and give him an antibiotic shot that would work for 2 weeks.  OK, at this point I lost it.  We had fallen in love with this sweet little kitten and now, I was going to have to tell my daughter that we may have to put him down because I could not afford $1200 for surgery.    The next day, I did some phone calling, I knew the vet tech at the clinic and she had not worked the day before.  She was able to tell me that she could "bundle" things and ended up quoting me around $600.  We would only have to pay half and the rest could be put on payments.  So I had a plan, this was maybe doable.   My husband didn't want to discuss it, stating...he might get better.  I picked him up after work that day and Madison placed him in a box she made with his name all over it and "my little warrior" and "Jesus will heal you".   He stayed in the box only for about 2 days, on the 3rd day he was walking more normally and by day 5...he was crawling up the screens on the windows again.  I knew the hip had to be back in, he was bounding all over.

10 days later I took him into the vet to recheck the hip.  I told the vet what I thought....that the hip HAD to be back in.   Sure enough.  The x-rays showed a perfect hip.  The vet was pretty surprised.   I think he had an infection in the hip which forced it out of the joint and the antibiotic shot cleared it up and allowed the hip to move back.


Madison and Ziggy.

Ziggy is a very strange cat.  He LOVES water.  He likes to drink out of the faucet, watch you shower or bathe and hops up on the toilet after it is flushed to watch the water go down. 


Playing with his water dish.




Each animal is very different.  And they each add something to our lives, what that is....maybe only the animal knows.